Flicker
All luminaires connected to the mains are powered by alternating current and can therefore flicker. Flicker is a rapid variation in light intensity that is often not visible to the naked eye. Nevertheless, it can affect people negatively by causing fatigue, headaches and the like.
Since 2022, the EU has banned the most flickering light sources/luminaires on the market. For all indoor luminaires, the limits are:
Visible flicker (PstLM): ≤ 1.0
Stroboscopic flicker (SVM): ≤ 0.9 (After 1 Sep 2024: ≤ 0.4)
Of course, all SG luminaires meet these requirements, and most are significantly better.
In addition, SG has a range of products with extremely low flicker, and these are labelled with our FlickerFree icon.
To earn this seal of approval, the luminaire must have less than 3% flicker.
Before the EU regulation of flicker was introduced, indoor luminaires could have up to 100% flicker. The measurement units PstLM/SVM cannot be directly compared to flicker percentage, but products with around 15% flicker can be within the requirements. So 3% is far better than the EU requirements.